Walt Disney, Disneyland, and the Western Myth

The American West has not only been a part of geography but the mind, the spirit, and the concept of nation for generations. For years it was a place to go. Somewhere out there lay the possibility of endless resources and the west functioned as a symbol of freedom and the opportunity for conquest. For that reason, movement towards west has always been encouraged. Even during the times of depression there was a constant urge to move towards west with hope which was nourished by the mass media that west offered fertility, richness, comfort and vastness. In the early nineteenth century Alexis de Tocqueville remarked: "This gradual and continuous progress of the European race towards the Rocky Mountains has the solemnity of a providential event; it is like a deluge of men rising unabatedly, and daily driven onwards by the hand of God." Jefferson understood the impulse when he bought Louisiana and when he dispatched Lewis and Clark on their mission. Whitman addressed west "lands of the Western shore, to the new culminating men, to you, the empire new." Emerson recognized the importance of the West "Luckily for us, ... the nervous, rocky West is intruding a new and continental element into the national mind, and we shall yet have an American genious." Henry David Thoreaue added to this saying, "Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free."

The nation, however, had to wait Frederick Jackson Turner for a full-blown theory on the meaning of the frontier. In 1893 in a historical convention he proclaimed the primary significance of the American frontier, "this existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development" (Annals 11:463). Then he went on describing the characteristics of the frontier, that coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness, that practical, inventive turn of the mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things...; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and with all buoyancy and exuberance which comes from freedom-these are traits of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier" (Annals, 11:478).

No other words can better describe the frontier spirit in Walt Disney. Born into a lower middle-class family in Chicago on December 5,1901, Walt Elias Disney went through all the difficulties in life in order to build his Disney empire with a kind of frontier spirit. Fortunes and the misfortunes caused Disney to move from town to town. While attending McKinley High School, Walt enrolled at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts as a night student and had the opportunity to work with the famous cartoonist of the day, Carey Orr.

During World War I, he volunteered for Red Cross. On his return from France, he obtained employment as a commercial artist in Kansas City, working for a film company that made animated commercials for showing in city cinemas. In the same company, there was another apprentice named Ubbe Iwerks. Walt Disney respected his talent and was grateful for his help since it was Walt who acted out the scenario and provided the rough drawing and brilliant ideas and it was Ubbe who took them in hand and smoothly executed them. However, Walt found it difficult to resist the temptation to play tricks and make fun of his fellow apprentice.

With ups and downs in his career, Walt Disney managed to form his production company called Laugh-O-gram Film, Inc., and asked Ub to work with him. He made films based on well-known fairy tales. They were Puss in Boots, Red Riding Hood, and Alice's Adventure in Wonderland. In all of them, he used live actors and added cartoon characters drawn directly into the film. Though the films did well, they could not save Walt from bankruptcy.

At this point of his life, Walt, left penniless, decided to go West in 1923 to start a new life. He was aware of promising opportunities of the West. His brother, Roy, joined him in his adventure and handled the money matters of Walt Disney from then on. Walt also wrote Ub to suggest that he would move to Los Angeles and work with them. Ub accepted the offer and his arrival had a revolutionary effect on the operations of Disney Productions.

Meanwhile, Alice's Series and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit won considerable fame to the company. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Series brought also money to Walt Disney Studio which enabled both brothers who were married by that time to erect houses for themselves and raise Ub's salary to $120 a week and give him a block of shares in the studio. However, when time came for the renewal fo the contract, Universal Studio claimed the copyright of the Oswald character and Walt was to create a new character. Thus, Mickey Mouse came into life.

When Walt Disney showed his preliminary sketches, Ub's first comment was that the tiny rodent "looks exactly like you-same nose, same face, same whiskers, same gestures, and same expressions. All he needs now is your voice" (Mosley, 101). Walt Disney admitted that though he swore the character was based on actual mouse that had one prowled his tiny office in Kansas City. In any case, Mickey Mouse was accepted to be Walt Disney's alter ego by everybody around the studio. He had the same habits, the same outlook, the same mischievous sense of fun, and the same tendency to take foolish risks. The addition of Walt's own voice to be the cartoon character completed the conception.

In 1931, Walt Disney suffered from a nervous breakdown, partly because of his trustworthy friends, Ub Iwerks and Pat Powers, had betrayed him partly because he was longing for a child of his won for nearly six years. In order to keep Walt away from the business atmosphere, he and his wife took a long trip and upon their arrival in California, Walt Disney started a new project, Flowers and Trees. It became the first Disney cartoon to win Walt Disney an Oscar. He was also given a special award for his creation of Mickey Mouse.

To celebrate his wife's pregnancy he created Three Little Pigs. Suddenly radio stations began to play "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" Since the United States was still in depression, the Big Bad Wolf became a symbol of hard times and the survival of the little pigs, a message. Three Little Pigs eventually became one of the most popular and profitable cartoon Disney films of the 1930s. The two animators, Norman Fergusson and Fred Moore, who created the wolf and the pigs became famous inside Hollywood as masters of their craftmanship. Fergusson and Moore proved that they could do more than fill Ub's gap.

Having introduced all the technical novelties to the cartoon industry, Walt Disney was satisfied with creating animal characters and wanted to change the formula. Thus, he produced his first feature-length cartoon Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs which became one of the most successful films of all times. It has made a profit of 41 million dollars for the Walt Disney Studio so far.

Soon after that, the company suffered a strike and witnessed the return of Ub Iwerks. One of the cartoons on which Walt was working when the studio went on strike was a sentimental story about a baby elephant named Dumbo. In 1941 Dumbo was a hit and became so popular that it subsequently made the Disney Studio a profit over a million dollars.

Then, he produced films like Bambi, True-Life Adventure, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone and live action like Treasure Island, The Story of Robin Hood, The Sword and the Rose, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Davy Crockett, Polyanna, Absent-Minded Professor, and Mary Poppins.

When he got bored with the cartoons and the movies, Walt had another idea: to build a fun park. Although he had considred building an amusement park near the Burbank Studio. When it was being constructed, the idea had first occurred to him years before. As Disney could alter recall: "Disneyland really began when my two daughters were so young.... Saturday was always Daddy's Day, and I would take them to the merry-go-round and sit on a bench eating peanuts while they rode. And sitting there alone, I felt that there should be something built, some kind of a family park where parents and children could have fun together" (Bright, 33).

When Walt Disney first mentioned to his wife his desire to build an amusement park, she was astonished, indicating that amusement parks were always dirty and unpleasant for grown-ups. Her husband corrected her, indicating that his would not be like that. Roy Disney share his sister-in-law's opinion. Unlike Walt who was always original and challenging, Roy wanted Walt to play safe. One of the former employees said, "Roy was against Disneyland, Disney World, and against Epcot, all of them. It was Walt who finally drummed up the money for them-and he got it from outsiders" (Mosley, 228).

With the passage of time, Disneyland became an obsession and Walt Disney swore he would never do another thing at the studio until he had enough financing to get the project going. In an interview that he gave to the Hollywood Citizen-News at that time he said:

The park means a lot to me. It's something that will never be finished, something I can keep developing, keep "plussing" and "adding" to. It's alive. It will need changes. When you wrap up a picture and turn it over to Techinicolor, you're through. Show White is a dead issue with me. It's gone. I can't touch it. There are things in it I don't like, but I can't do anything out it. I want something alive, something that would grow. The park is that. Not only I can add things to it, but even the trees keep growing. The thing will get more beautiful year after year. And it will get better as I find out what the public likes. I can't do that with a picture. It's finished and unchangeable before I find out if the public likes it or not (Mosley, 230).

As time passed, the concept of the park began take shape in Walt Disney's mind. In a memo dated August 31, 1948, Walt presented the plans for what he tentatively named Mickey Mouse Park:

The Main Village, which includes the Railroad Stations is built around a village green or informal park. In the park will be benches, a bandstand, drinking fountains, trees, and shrubs. It will be a place for people to sit and rest; mothers and grandmothers can watch over small children at play. I want it to be very relaxing, cool and inviting.

Around the park will be built the town. At one end will be the Railroad Station; at the other end the Town hall. The hall will be built to represent a Town Hall, but actually we will use it as our administration building. It will be the headquarters of the entire project.

Adjoining the Town Hall will be the Fire and Police Stations. The Fire Station will contain practical fire apparatus, scaled down. The police Station will also be put to practical use. Here the visitors will report all violations, lost articles, lost kids, etc. In it we could have a little jail where the kids could look in. We might even have some characters in it (Thomas, 225-226).

Essentially, Walt Disney envisioned the creation of a miniature town. Elizabeth Leeron and Lynn Gartley in their preface to Walt Disney: A Guide to References and Resources, refer to Disneyland and Disney World as "attempts by Disney to control the environment of an audience, not in a film theatre, but in a fantasy community" (ix).

Even at the early stage of planning, he understood that the building of his park would be expensive. He began to raise money, by borrowing against his life insurance and later by selling a piece of property he owned. In December 1952, as his park was becoming a more and more tangible idea, he founded WED Enterprises, a personal corporation (named after Walt Disney's initials) designed to handle the business of planning and building the park.

By this time, the idea of the park, renamed Disneyland, had been defined. Based on drawing and plans, Disney's staffer, Bill Walsh, described it this way:

The idea of Disneyland is a simple one. It will be a place for people to find happiness and knowledge.

It will be a place for parents and children to share pleasant times in one another's company: a place for teachers and pupils to discover greater ways of understanding and education. Here the older generation can recapture the nostalgia of days gone by, and the younger generation can savor the challenge of the future. Here will be the wonders of nature and man for all to see and understand.

Disneyland will be based upon and dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and hard facts that have created America. And it will be uniquely equipped to dramatize these dreams and acts and send them forth as a source of courage and inspiration to all the world. Disneyland will be something of a fair, an exhibition, a playground, a community center, a museum of living facts, and a showplace of beauty and magic.

It will be filled with accomplishments, the joys and hopes of the world we live in. And it will remind us and show us how to make those wonders parts of our own lives (Thomas, 257-258).

Walt Disney's obsession with Disneyland is truly a reflection of Walt Disney-the man with unlimited imagination, effort, and novelties, the man of the West. Every detail in the park, in this respect, is carefully planned. Walt Disney conceived Disneyland not as a fun park but as a theme park, so as to convey and symbolize his ideas about the Western myth. It shows the creative spirit of the people who have lived and conquered the virgin, semi-populated, and semi-tamed land with their never-ending efforts and being a Westerner, Walt Disney designed the park accordingly.

Disneyland was opened on July 17, 1955 and the final cost was 17 million dollars. Despite unfavorable reviews and various misfortunes on the opening day, a million visitors visited Disneyland within he first seven weeks. The success of Disneyland had an important impact on Walt Disney's career and its popularity has continued to grow.

Disneyland has four main divisions: Fantasyland, Adventureland, Frontierland, and Tomorrowland. What is significant about the park is the locations of these different divisions: Frontierland is situated on the western part of the park and states the geographical situation and the difficulties migrants had encountered during the westward expansion. This idea and the spirit of the west is also given to the visitors by the train ride which encircles Disneyland and reflects the long-dreamed joy of Walt Disney. Another way to make the visitors feel the atmosphere of Frontierland is through different settings which revive the different aspect of that time. Some of the attractions are Big Thunder Ranch, Mark Twain Steamboat, Sailing Ship Columbia, Rafts to Tom Sawyer Island.

As opposed to the Frontierland, Tomorrowland with its various and exciting attractions, is situated on the eastern side of the theme park. Tomorrowland is the place where Walt Disney tried to force the boundaries of his imagination to fulfill both his dream and expectations of the visitors. Young or adult, all the visitors take pleasure in experiencing the various challenges offered by Tomorrowland. It is also a place where people try to orient themselves to the opportunities and dangers of he coming age. Space Mountain, Star Tours, Starcade, and People Mover are some of the attractions of the division which is also a display of the latest technology.

Disneyland, is not only significant from a historical perspective but also important from literary point of view in which all the different divisions can be interpreted as subtexts. As Bill Walsh, Disney's staffer had mentioned in his description of Disneyland, it is "a place for teachers and pupils to discover greater ways of understanding and education." When Walt Disney set forth to build a park, he insisted on the idea that this should be a theme park, not a fun park solely. Though Disneyland is perceived as an entertainment place, and on the surface it is, it is, on the other hand, a spot for people to be educated. At this point it is wise to draw attention to the different meanings of "education" defined in Webster's International Dictionary. One of the meanings of the verb "to educate" is to "make willing to accept (as by providing with knowledge, information, or experience)." Thus, different divisions of the park stand for different literary genres and try to instruct the visitors while having fun.

In this respect, Fantasyland exposes the elements of fantasy as a literary genre which disregards the principle that literature should present not the possible but the probable. Fantasy includes the things hat are impossible under ordinary conditions or in the normal course of human events. As this genre defined by Joseph Shipley in Dictionary of World Literary Terms, "only purely imaginary phenomena, accepted as such by the author and his intelligent readers, constitute the characteristic matter of fantasy" (117). In that respect, Submarine Voyage which was inspired by the film 20,000 Leagues under the Sea gives the visitors the opportunity to board the submarine, Nautilus, and explore the lost undersea worlds. Storybook Land Canal Boats take the quests to different types of fairy tale atmosphere created by famous children story book writer, Anderson, whereas a different section, Alice in the Wonderland, reflects the adventures of here of sophisticated children's book, Alice's Adventure in the Wonderland where below a surface of attractive adventure lay rich patterns of parody, irony, sentimentalism, and analytic criticism. Thus, they children visiting Fantasyland are invited both to the realms of joy and literacy.

Frntierland is the Disneyland version of the westerns and Tomorrowland is the science-fiction. In Frontierland, the atmosphere of the westerns is revived though different settings like Big Thunder Ranch. The visitors experience and feel the code of honor and justice and the image of a hero as portrayed in typical westerns. I is a mythical place where a person, or society can regenerate and begin again. There, the West is shown as a place to prove manhood as Virginian did in Owen Wister's Virginian. In Frontierland, The Western myth which might as well be the combination of emotional, romantic and idealistic truth, comes to life.

On the other hand, the visitors are invited to the world of science-fiction as soon as they enter Tomorrowland. Tomorrowland is the exhibition of the kind of prose fiction that explores "the probable consequences of some improbable or impossible transformation of the basic conditions of human existence." This transformation is brought about by technology in Tomorrowland where time travel is the mostly exploited theme. For example, Star Tours give the opportunity to the visitors to experience the ultimate thrill while being seated in a space ship designed for that purpose. As defined by Chris Baldrick in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, "Science fiction is a form of literary fantasy or romance that often draws upon earlier kinds of utopian and apocalyptic writing" (xxx). In fact, Tomorrowland combines those two elements, fantasy and romance within its borders. The author of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Jules Verne, who is considered to be the fore-runner of sciene-fiction, gave inspirations to the Submarine Voyage in Tomorrowland. Another meaningful connection between science-fiction and fantasy is obtained through the attraction Skyway to Fantasyland. Though it is in the era allotted to Tomorrowland, it offers the visitors to enjoy a bird's eye view on a one-way trip to Fantasyland. Similarly, Skyway to Tomorrowland originating in Fantasyland is again a one-way journey to Tomorrowland. Thus, the strong existence of fantasy in science-fiction is emphasized through different attractions.

To conclude, Walt Disney, who created a legendary business out of his imagination, can be studied as an entrepreneur, as Wester figure, and as an industrialist. He combines these different characteristics in Disneyland which originated in Anaheim, has expanded to Florida, Europe, Japan, and imitations throughout the world. His original concept of Disneyland derived from specific aspects of the Western culture: the idea of expansion, idealism, and optimistic belief in technology. A product of popular culture, representative of American life and consciousness, Disneyland can also be interpreted as a macronarrative where different sub-texts follow a certain time pattern guiding the participants from past to future. Thus, Disneyland, being on the one hand a by-product of the popular culture, on the other hand reflects the spirit of the western culture in its multi-dimensional functions.

Bibliography

The Annals of America. Vol. 12. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1976.

Baldrick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Bright, Randy. Disneyland: The Inside Story. New York: N. Abrams, 1987.

Jackson, Kathy Merlock. Walt Disney: A Bio-Bibliography. Connecticut: Greenwood Press.

Leebron, Elizabeth and Lyn Gartley. Walt Disney: A Guide to References and Resources. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1979.

Mosley, Leonard. Disney's World. New York: Stein and Day, 1985.

Shipley, Joseph, ed. Dictionary of World Literary Terms. Boston: The Writer, Inc., 1970.

Sinyard, Neil. The Best of Disney. New York: Portland House, 1988.

Thomas, Bob. Disney's Art of Animation. New York: Hyperion, 1991.

______. Walt Disney: An American Original. New York: Pocket Books, 1976.

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Chantal Ahobaut is the chairperson of American Studies Department, National University of Cote D'Ivoire.